Outside the City
by fieldagent85
Summary: Perry White stops by the Kent farm after the incident at the bridge to seek out a little inspiration from his old friend Martha Clark.


Following the incident at the bridge, Clark had stopped home long enough only to bring his parents up to speed before leaving again, having promised Pete a meager reward of ice cream for putting up with him. Afterwards, they met up with Chloe at the Torch and found her typing away at her computer, leaning into the screen with interest.

"Clark!" She exclaimed when she said them in the doorway. "Come here for a sec."

Both Pete and Clark walked over to where Chloe was sitting and stood around the computer. "Look at this," she began, scrolling down a _Daily Planet_ archives website. "I was looking up your buddy Perry White in the _Daily Planet_ archives, checking out some of his old stuff, and I came across this…" She stopped scrolling on a picture dated twenty-six years earlier, of a young Perry White and Martha Clark. "Looks like the man in question had someone else in his life before he met Jack Daniels."

Clark squinted and stared at the pictures for a few seconds while Chloe continued. "According to this, your mother – apparently the darling of the Metropolis elite at the time– took White with her to her coming out party."

Clark frowned, puzzled, and exchanged glances with an equally baffled Pete. "Her _what_?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Her coming out party, her debutante ball, like a cotillion…"

"Right, right, I got it." Clark leaned in and stared at the picture for a few more seconds. "I can't believe she never said anything."

"Come on, Clark," Pete said, with a casual shrug. "It's not as if your mom's always been real open about her past in Metropolis."

Chloe nodded, silently considering her own past in Metropolis, relating to Martha Kent's likely predicament.

"Well, yeah," Clark replied. "Because it makes my dad uncomfortable and all."

"So why are you surprised?"

Clark sighed and sat down beside Chloe. "I don't know."

After Clark left, Martha and Jonathan had been slightly overwhelmed at first, shaken by the idea that a sudden loss of powers could place Clark in the most precarious of positions. After awhile, Jonathan returned to the field, his tractor apparently demanding his attention more than she did, and so she remained in the kitchen, brewing a pot of coffee to sooth her nerves. Moments later, a knock on the front door threw her from her glassy-eyed daze and she distractedly walked to the foyer to investigate.

Perry White stood on the front step, the very man who had put her son in such a precarious position. He grinned sheepishly and studied her expression uncertainly.

Martha placed one hand on her hip and pursed her lips. "I was wondering when you'd come to see me."

Perry shrugged. "I wasn't sure you'd want me to."

She rolled her eyes and stepped back. "Come in." He crossed the threshold, and followed her through the hallway and into the kitchen. "You look like hell, Perry."

"Thank you," he replied, with a faux air of charm and grace as he sat at the counter. "Today's a big improvement actually, most days not even the underworld will tolerate any kind of association with me. I spruced myself up especially for you, Marty."

Martha shot him a steely glare. "Don't call me that." She picked up the now-brewed pot of coffee. "You want a cup?"

He nodded. "Please." His eyes observed her while she poured the hot liquid into two mugs, silently noting just how much she had changed over the years. "I've spent a lot of time with your son over the past few days, as I'm sure you know."

"Yes," Martha answered, handing him a mug and sitting across from him. "Are you satisfied now?"

"Oh, yes." He took a sip. "I will say though, in my own defense, I thought that if ever such an extraordinary boy could exist, it would be a child of yours, Martha Clark."

She flinched at hearing her former name, shaking her head slightly to fend off the memories that threatened to return. "Kent," Martha said, tersely.

"Kent, right," Perry replied, nodding almost condescendingly.

He drank his coffee silently for a moment, avoiding eye contact with her. She watched him almost sadly and then sighed. "What the hell happened to you, Perry?"

Perry looked up and met her strong gaze with his own, full of conviction. "What the hell happened to _you_, hot shot? Last I saw you, you were an executive assistant in the legal department at the _Daily Planet_ sifting through acceptance letters from every Ivy League law school on the East Coast. And here you are twenty-odd years later, keeping house and serving coffee."

Martha looked away, wanting to oppose his argument but feeling as if she didn't have enough evidence. "Things changed when I married Jonathan. You know that."

"Yeah, but I never thought he'd make you give up your dreams."

She shook her head fervently. "Those weren't my dreams. They were my father's."

Perry shrugged his shoulders and smirked knowingly. "Sure, but what is a child if not an extension of her parents?"

Martha frowned, gearing herself into full defense mode. "I seem to recall _you_ being on the road to success when last we met, too. A straight shot to fame and fortune, and now look at you, chasing down some kind of fabricated supernatural lead, inserting yourself into the life of an average teenage boy. You can't tell me that's not a step down from the ambitious copy boy who used to buy me a hot dog every day and tell me every detail of his big time reporter aspirations."

Perry nodded, unable to argue. After a moment, he looked up pensively. "You ever stop to think that maybe being together was what brought out the talent and ambitious in both of us?"

She sighed and took a sip from her coffee mug. "I think we were young, Perry. I think we just…wanted to want."

"Okay, so, quick recap," Perry began. "You ended up with a farm in Littleville and a passed down family recipe for blueberry muffins, and I wound up with a one room apartment in Suicide Slums and a bottle of whiskey."

"I'd like to add a husband and a child to that list, thank you very much," Martha responded, sharply. "I'm proud of this life, and I'm very happy with where I am."

"Have you told him about me?" Perry asked, tilting his head, gesturing toward the barn.

"Nothing to tell."

"I doubt he'd view it that way if he knew."

Martha stood up, grabbed both of their mugs, and all but threw them into the sink. "Don't you think you've stirred up enough trouble in this town for one week?"

Perry stood then as well, but maintained a fair distance between them. "I'm not here to stir things up. I'm not here to…mess up your perfect life, Martha. I guess I Just wanted you to see my perfectly imperfect one," he explained. "I just hope Jonathan appreciates what he has. What I lost."

The distinct creek of the background opening startled both of the kitchen's occupants when Jonathan entered the house. "What was that?"

Martha gasped, her eyes widening. "Jonathan."

Perry looked back and forth, from one o the other. "Go on. Tell him, Marty."

Jonathan glanced at his wife in confusion. "Marty?!"

Martha hesitated, biting her lip. "Perry…_Mr. White_…and I were…childhood friends."

Perry scoffed. "I think it counts as a little more than 'childhood friends' when you're with someone for four years, doesn't it?"

Now thoroughly confused and unamused, Jonathan turned to his wife for answers. "Martha, what's he talking about?"

"Perry and I met in high school," she explained slowly. "We started dating when I was seventeen. I left him when I met you."

"Yeah, I think she ended up with the better deal, don't you?" Perry questioned sarcastically but not without a morsel of truth in his words. "I'm not sure Martha would take very well to a shack in Suicide Slums. Granted, had she ended up with me, who's to say I wouldn't be editor of the _Daily Planet_ by now?"

Jonathan frowned and moved toward Martha slowly. "You…_dated_ this guy?"

"And turned down several marriage proposals," Perry added. "Though she didn't seem to have much trouble accepting yours."

"Martha, how could you not tell me that? After all these years…"

"It wasn't important," Martha maintained. "I met you, I fell in love with you, and I married you. Nothing else seemed to matter at the time."

"It mattered when I told you about Nell," Jonathan retorted.

"Oh, please, you never would have told me about her if there hadn't been a guarantee that I would run into her on a daily basis when I moved to Smallville."

"That has nothing to do with it, Martha!"

"Hey, hey, hey, kids," Perry interjected. "Listen, honestly, I don't blame Martha for not telling you about me. I was nothing special and obviously she forgot all about me the second she laid eyes on you, so what does it matter? I think the only reason she was with me in the first place was to keep all of the incorrigible, lecherous men of Metropolis from hanging all over her. I tell ya, Jonathan, it was as if there were no other women in the city the way these guys pursued her. I was a buffer." He shrugged, and looked over at Martha, who looked as though she might burst into tears.

"Perry, that's not true," she whispered.

"It is true, Marty," Perry said softly. "And it's okay. I always hoped you'd find happiness outside the city. And, as predicted, I found myself a whole lot of unhappiness inside the city." He smiled sadly and advanced toward the back door, stopping next to Jonathan. "Take good care of what you've got because this one deserves more than both of us combined could ever give her."

With a nod and a smile in Martha's direction, he was gone, and Jonathan wondered what else he didn't know about the life his wife lived before he entered into it.


End file.
